Leading the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine

 Paul Stoffels, J&J ’s Chief Scientific Officer, has given delegates at eyeforpharma’s Barcelona Virtual conference exclusive insights into its rapid progress in the search for a vaccine to the COVID-19 virus. Speaking to Reuters News on day two of the five-day conference, Stoffels said J&J ’s potential vaccine, which has just been chosen as a lead candidate to help tackle the pandemic, could be ready for clinical trials as soon as early September with evidence of its safety and efficacy expected by the end of the year.  This means that the first vaccinations could be given in the first quarter of 2021. J&J hopes to have developed millions of batches by then, enabling vaccines for high-risk people under emergency use, Stoffels added. The company is also expanding the its global manufacturing capacity to assist in the rapid production of a vaccine that will enable the supply of more than one billion doses of the vaccine globally. J&J said it would do this on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use. Extensive testingIn the interview with Alex Threlfall, Reuters Editor at Large, Stoffels expressed high confidence in the vaccine ’s potential.  “We have done this several times with HIV, RSV, Zika and Ebola. Four times we have been able to use the vector, inserting the right piece of DNA coding for the particular antigen for that disease. We have vaccinated 50,000 people so far in these four diseases. “Now we only have to change the ve...
Source: EyeForPharma - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news